


Bootleg Royalty

by Tridraconeus



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Fighting, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: When he burst into the courtyard, a fair amount of the ground was on fire. It would extinguish as the alcohol was burned up. The assassin, one of Daud’s black-clad Whalers, danced between patches of flame to lash at Slackjaw’s men with a butcher’s blade.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Bootleg Royalty

**Author's Note:**

> me surfacing from hell to throw a mess at everyone in the dishonored tag: yeet

Slackjaw was roused from ledgerwork by jeering and yells in the courtyard. The Bottle Street Boys were a rowdy bunch, and he was content to let them be rowdy. They got drunk and played cards and argued over the results, and just as often fought over the results. He initially took the ruckus to be a routine disturbance like that. A source of entertainment if he happened to be in the right place, but ultimately ignorable. 

“Assassin!” One of them yelled, and he realized it was not a routine, ultimately ignorable scuffle. The gang member had said assassin, so maybe there was only one. A group of them could vanquish one assassin. If they were evenly matched for number, Slackjaw had no such delusions. 

He reached into his pocket for his brass knuckles. 

When he burst into the courtyard, a fair amount of the ground was on fire. It would extinguish as the alcohol was burned up. The assassin, one of Daud’s black-clad Whalers, danced between patches of flame to lash at Slackjaw’s men with a butcher’s blade. 

He was alone and outnumbered. As skilled as Daud’s assassins were, they were cowardly when alone or in a fair fight. Their principal targets were, of course, those who couldn’t fight back. Why wasn’t he running away?

He couldn’t, Slackjaw realized after watching him move for another minute. His shallow well of arcane power was dry. He was _trapped_. He was hopping around like a three-legged wolfhound because he’d been encircled by the gang with no way out. He locked blades with one; dropped the blade when someone came at him from the side and he couldn’t disengage and keep his blade both. He turned and shot something from a contraption on his wrist. 

“I’ll deal with this,” Slackjaw finally called. He jumped down from the distillery porch and under the awning that used to be a gate, the Whaler confused and on alert in a circle of gang members that widened and parted to allow Slackjaw inside. “Shoulda known better than showing your face around here, assassin.” 

Neither of them had time for circling and posturing. On that, they agreed, and could perhaps be friends. 

The Whaler was of Slackjaw’s build if not an inch or two— or three— shorter, but significantly faster. The crowd gasped as he ducked under Slackjaw’s first swing and popped him in the mouth. Slackjaw growled— it had mashed his lip against his teeth and he felt a healing split tear open again. 

“You’re gonna pay for that.” No need to shout; he was right there. He punched Slackjaw in the gut, but missed and hit his side instead, and danced back out of reach. There was another piece to the dance that was missing, that he was tripping over and needing sorely. It gave Slackjaw an opening to bowl him over with a swing to the jaw, followed up by a shove backwards. The Whaler staggered and fell on his ass, but he even fell gracefully. Slackjaw followed him down with far less grace and punched him in the masked face. The Whaler was momentarily stunned, making a movement that would run Slackjaw through had he still been in possession of his blade, and couldn’t fight back as Slackjaw set himself to sit, a leg on each side, on his midsection. 

“That’s what you get,” he told the squirming lump underneath him, and landed another solid blow on his cheek. The Whaler wasn’t fighting back in any serious capacity now that he was grounded and pinned, only smacking and shoving his arms, and pushing his hips and knees but finding Slackjaw ultimately immovable. “Sneakin’ into my bloody distillery. Stealin’ my bloody elixir.”

Daud’s men were all capable, of course, but with a _blade_. Some of them were scrappers, and this one was not. Slackjaw thought to himself that Daud would have done much better to send a scrapper. The Whaler bucked under him like an unbroken horse and Slackjaw cracked him across the temple so hard his entire head turned with the force. A yelp of pain, muffled by the mask, and an undercurrent of realization— of horror— that Slackjaw had no plans of stopping. When it came to killing, Slackjaw knew the Whalers were merciful. A blade, or fast-acting poison. There was a moment of terror and sometimes not even that and then nothing. They were brutal, but they did not brutalize. 

Slackjaw liked the fear in his voice as he realized that he was going to be _brutalized_. He was learning a lesson, if a fatal one. It was the least Slackjaw could do to be a good teacher.

The Whaler bucked again. Slackjaw hit him again, getting a good angle that made the Whaler howl a split-second after it connected; the way he shook his head and then stilled meant his nose had likely been broken and definitely was bleeding. The Whaler kicked his legs and tried to twist and throw Slackjaw off of him, and Slackjaw grabbed him by the throat with one hand and beat against his cheek with the other. Even without brass knuckles it would hurt. The Whaler cried out the first few times, then merely yelped, then dissolved into a constant low-level miserable keen. His struggles followed the same dwindling pattern, from thrashing to pushing to little more than twitching. Slackjaw _was_ putting a lot of pressure on his throat. He _was_ hitting him hard, and an excessive amount, plenty to kill a normal man twice over already. Such was the power of the Mark, even a secondhand mimicry afforded by Daud. 

Slackjaw paused in the beating. The Whaler was panting, wheezing, trying to draw in breath. He was laying like a piece of wet fabric. He smelled sour and hot, like blood and vomit. 

“Told the Outsider I didn’t need his black magic to come out on top.” He leaned back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It came away bloody— odd, that it was his own blood, but the mask hid the Whaler’s bloody nose. His weight on the Whaler’s midsection was more than enough to keep the young man down and he was too dazed to squirm anyway. 

“Guess I was right about that.” He chuckled. His jaw ached but at a lower, ignorable register. It wasn’t his first split lip and he found a split lip far preferable to a broken nose. “Wasn’t I?” 

The Whaler whuffed. Slackjaw sighed, leaning forward again to rest his hand on the Whaler’s collarbones. “Speak up, boy.”

The Whaler still didn’t speak but he nodded. Slackjaw decided to accept it. 

“I could finish the job if I wanted to.” 

The Whaler looked away at that. Even though Slackjaw couldn’t make eye contact, it was enough of a reminder that the Whaler could. The barrier of the mask let the Whaler distance themself from what they were doing. Slackjaw found masks distasteful for the same reason; distasteful, but sometimes necessary. “You heard me right. You’re gonna send a message for me instead.” 

With the cleverness and fight beaten out of him, the Whaler’s eagerness to hold onto his life showed. He looked at Slackjaw again and his chest pushed up, a little, breathing in to brace himself. Slackjaw held off on punching him for that. 

“So listen up. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing at, I want it done. You and your kind stay out of my distillery. I’m not dumb enough to start a war with Daud, so I’m gonna let you live.” He leaned in. He pressed his hand against the Whaler’s throat, hard. “You hear me?” 

The Whaler’s throat bobbed against his palm. He nodded again. Slackjaw got off of him, brushing dust off his pants, slipping his brass knuckles off and tucking the weapons away again.

“That’s what I like to hear. You know where the door is.”

Once Slackjaw was clear, the Whaler scrambled to his feet and skedaddled up the filthy courtyard to escape through the door. The ring of gang members parted to give him just enough space to dart through, and he couldn’t avoid being heckled, and spit on, and clouted on the back or side, but he didn’t catch any knives or bullets on his way out so Slackjaw didn’t have to yell at anybody. There was a small outpost of Whalers in the condemned apartments just outside the distillery; he’d be seen by his fellows there. 

The show was over. Slackjaw whistled tunelessly to himself, and headed back inside the distillery as the gang dispersed.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway one of my fav scenes from the corroded man is geriatric ass slackjaw straight up beating a whaler v2 to death with brass knuckles


End file.
